Convergys Call Center Sucks Because Agents Are Stabbing Each Other And Making Out In The Halls

By Ben PopkenJuly 26, 2007

Customer service agents making out in the halls, employee knife fights, and overflowing commodes are just some of the reasons listed in this flameout resignation letter for why customer service seems to suck so much sometimes. The author worked at a Hazlewood, MO call center for Convergys, one of the leading companies for outsourced call center support. Some of their clients include Comcast, Walmart, and SBC. They also used to do AOL’s.

As you read the letter, you may think, oh, he’s whiny because he wants his special disabled person’s monitor and keyboard rest. Then you get to the part where you find out the disability came from getting hit on his way to work by a Mack Truck, in icy conditions, potentially because the call center would never close even when the roads were dangerous. Then you go “ohhh” and everything you read up until that point starts to crystallize…

UPDATE: We should mention this letter was accompanied by other resignation letters, which were spell-checked and grammatically correct, which corroborated this letter’s contents, but were not made available for release.

Mr. Streit please let me introduce myself. My name is [redacted] and I am an agent in the Hazelwood, MO call center where I have been employed for approx four months. I am writing to inform you that the experience leaves me without words. And most of the time this is a difficult task not just because I have been described as having the gift of gab, but I am capable of translating five languages. You probably are asking what is it about your call center that that leaves me confounded, well let me count the ways:

1. the dress code which ranges from ghetto ridiculous (for the men), to street walker chic (for the women). Women have their breast almost totally exposed, and let’s not forget the other end in short dresses. This is true of our acting assistant OM. When I ask why the dress code is not enforced they state they are worried that they will be charged with sexual harassment. This is not true – we have a dress code and it needs to be enforced. I don’t wish to see it. The men need to pull up their jeans – they are out of high school and need to dress for work. Then there are the dirty / ripped / stained clothes. Please help us

2. the amount of violence that takes place there on a regular basis, and I do mean literal fist fights both on the work floor and out in front of the building, (one simply needs to contact Hazelwood Police department for that numbers of arrests taken place this year). A few weeks back I had the experience of being in a hall with about 30 people coming towards me and 2 men fighting. I also heard one threaten the other with stabbing. He was one of our floor roamers / acting supervisors. He is no longer there. I am hoping it is because I did report it to Vanessa in HR. The women are just as bad. I have just missed being hit because of a fight in the woman’s room.

3. the perpetual booty call, this for the unlearned is the constant picking up, making out which has obviously taken precedence over call handling ( this practice is not left to the agents it seems to be a normal practice among a lot of your team leaders as well). I have personally reported the making out in the hallways to HR and was told to say something to the participants. I think not. Yes I am on a team leader’s team – and I have requested to be moved since they put me on his team. I asked because I am also disabled and need a Team Leader to do this job and know what a reasonable accommodation is. He is the joke on the floor – the whole day he spends going from sweet young girl after girl flirting. Everyone knows he doesn’t do his job yet he is allowed to continue on. This would be Corey Cambell. I am very upset that no one will help me so I suffer. Today I had to leave because the stress this puts on me cause me to start throwing up, I also have been unable to eat this week. Vanessa keeps putting me off. This is over a month.
Issues:
1 I need to have the raise I was to get in Oct given to me and the back pay.
2 I was suppose to have a special keyboard because of surgery I had on my hands and a riser for a monitor that went missing when SBC left and we went to Comcast project. That was 2 years ago.
3 This center is open regardless of the weather. Last week they were open when we had an ice storm followed by a foot of snow. We still have people without power. The have no concern for the employees and their health or their life. Beside which the lot was still ice when I came to work Monday and this includes the handicapped spaces. Trust me you do not want a disabled person falling because Convergys refuses to do reasonable accommodation.
4 And while were on it what about religious accommodation? You know they don’t bother.
5 yes we have UTO’s and PTO’s but try to use them. You have to request those 3 or greater weeks in advance and even then you can’t use them most the time. The block they use or if you sick and when you call the automated system it won’t allow the use. No exceptions for doctor visits either other than they will give you 1 infraction as apposed to several. But if you’re iced in for days then they won’t work with you; the exception to this is those who do not call in and their tl fixes the problem. So unfair.
6 Fix my schedule – 8 am to 4:30 and lunch at 11:30 which was approve ages ago.There are more problems with my tl that Vanessa has been looking into for over a month – unresolved.
4. Team lead seems to imply the leading of a team. Not here it most often means picking the least trained and most irresponsible agents and setting them lose on the floor to assists those agent who need assistance with problems, irate customers, and to handle request from customers to speak to a supervisor. I find this really amusing since quite a lot of these mental midgets come over to the commercial/floor support team I work on and ask for help. lol

All I can say here is OH MY GOD. Training consists of web surfing and breaks – long breaks. I have been thru more training classes than I care to say. They test you but trainers give the answers to the test and people who I know still didn’t pass the tests and went on and working. Check employee over turn. It’s sad to see. And some many people – good people fired for fabricated reasons while others who are just ignored for their infractions. team leaders refuse to take any sup calls because we have no way of helping these customers anyway. So now anyone who came out of training can roam and act as supervisors. This is ridicules and shame on them.

Yesterday I roamed because floor support begged me to and no one knows how to use tools. Agents allowed to roam have no knowledge themselves of how to do simple tasks. Let alone procedures and policies.
5. When one walks the floor you can always find a group of residential agents without their headphones either standing around like they are back on the block or kicked backed in their chairs like they are lounging on the front porch on a nice summer’s eve without concern. Oh yeah one cannot omit sing-a-longs and rap-a-thons.

Yesterday when I was roaming a girl answered her cell and put her phone in aux then left the quad to continue her conversation. We are not allowed to have cell phones on when on the floor or to use aux for that reason. You’ve got gay and straights making out in the halls.

Let’s talk food – we’re not allowed to eat food on the floor but yet we find spoiled half eaten food in drawers or on the desks/ I spend most mornings cleaning my station and that is not my job. We lost pre-shift which means we must either arrive extra early and work while not being paid. Make-shifts was to allow us time to get all the tools opened and ready to handle calls. I believe that is illegal.

6 A certain TL sitting at his desk while one of the agents is photographing him while he is entertaining another female agent (the infamous booty call) yes – and so many other things – like they eat at their desks.

I had a bad experience with a different team leader, who had the nerve to ask me if I was on drugs. This was in SEC days. I could go on for ages about the team leader but I won’t.

7. HR employees who attempt to interfere with law enforcement officers serving summons upon one employee (mashona jankins) by only telling the officer that he does not work there anymore, but also going as far as to making this statement in writing on the summons (2) themselves, which are now in custody of the judge. However, this employee failed to interfere with the Hazelwood police when they served him the third time, when they identified his car was parked in the company parking lot while he was at work . This situation is really deplorable on several levels (a) he was being summoned to court so a young lady who was once an employee at convergys could get an order of protection against him… (his crime you ask…assault and attempted rape! (b)since the HR employee represents Convergys and the Client Walmart.com they both could be held liable for the behavior of this violent man.. But I, guess that’s a situation for legal minds to work out.

8. the level of cleanliness is abhorrent, when you go into the men’s room and you see that the floor is used as often as the commodes….1 person doing maintenance for how many hundred people? can you say the potential birth place for Hepatitis A through Z.

Again poor Jessie – he always has a smile for us and he does his best to clean the whole building by himself but he can only do so much – again ridicules. Yet he would never complain himself.

Women can’t seem to use the bathroom the right way; they back up and spray hitting everything. And the handicapped stall has been out of order for weeks. Yes there is another but other people us it and that is against the law just like disabled parking. I have also asked them to keep people from using someone else’s handicapped sticker and too keep people from parking in the spaces between the disabled spots, as this blocks people from getting into their cars. I finally started calling the police myself and they gave 5 Convergys managers tickets – they we not very happy with me. But Convergys can ask them for the pink slip and verify that the person is who this plate is for, they refuse to either make sure people are not in-between the parking spaces and they are still doing this. Yet if one of the employees are in their visitors spots they tow the car.

9. Failure by HR to honor the People’s with Disability Act by not providing disabled persons such as myself with equipment necessary to provide a comfortable working environment such as an ergonomic chair which would offer support to my cervical spine (which has had multiple surgical procedures) and both my knees which together have been through at least twelve surgical procedures. I keep being told the chair has been ordered by HR even I have played the game and jumped through every hoop they placed before me and my physician, but it never seems to arrive and I continue to report to work and endure the pain as I can. But this is another issue for legal minds to explore…

It took me 1 full year to get my chair – keyboard and riser. They would not get me it until I got EEOC to come in and enforce the rules. Again I have asked them to do things I want off Christmas – Dec. 25 for religious accommodations – I am a minister, so is [redacted]. I also need to be off when there are ice or snow storms, again because the lot is not cleaned and if I fall I will hold Convergys liable.

When I am ill or must see my doctor I would like my UTO or PTO to be honored. They also owe me a neck roll for my neck which I never received. I can only fight so hard because the toll it takes on me is harsh.

10. Or perhaps when you interview for a position that you never applied for but was requested to attend by the former Dir of HR Anthony Garza and you never hear anything and you go to HR to find out what the deal is. You are told that you were not considered for a second interview and when you ask why you are told by hr personnel that she doesn’t know and no reason was give to her or put in the file. Or maybe, when you apply for a position such as team lead and you are given the application back by your TL and told you are not being considered for the position but his name is the only name on the application approving you for consideration and neither the OM nor Kristie Reinik who have made the decision have signed the document. And when you ask who refused only Anne Isolm signs the document stating you have not beet employed long enough (even though most everyone with a brain is aware of the exception clause to the 180 day rule), to heck with your managerial experience, your graduate degree and two undergraduate degrees, your employment history that more than qualifies you for the position, and lets not forget the lateral position changes from residential agent to commercial agent in 30 days not 180 days which I did not request but was drafted for. But I guess these types of employment shifts are suitable, but can they really think this is the best use of someone with my talents? Or is there something else going on? Just thinking out loud. I will attach my resume for you to glance at, at you leisure.

Promotions are not based on seniority and forget the stupid scores that they say they go by because if you go by those you only get what the Tl does – they do the ratings and some of my scores are based on medical needs which are pure discrimination. I was also denied the right to apply for promotions because I am disabled. I also am on part time schedule due to medical, I was hit by a mac truck going to work on a day when the weather was icy and they would not let me off. Again next time I will be holding Convergys responsible. no idea what I expect from you or you company, I guess I need to write this to you since the situation at work today was so deplorable that I couldn’t work the whole day. But I guess that’s my problem huh? I sincerely hope not.

We all know that if you call the Hazelwood office they will deny everything and probably label me as disgruntled or a trouble maker or something. Oh well, can’t do nothing about that.

True = lies lie’s lies not only lies but employee files go missing. Mine did, and a woman who was pregnant and on fmla was lost so when she came back she had to start at the base pay. Again illegal. I don’t know how many ways we can say it but the place is absolutely horrid. Last holiday peoples pay checks went missing… And we have been ordered to lie to the customer regarding the merger from adelphia to comcast and people and businesses being off line and this are comcasts fault. Why do I have to lie or loose my job? I am a minister, this is a violation of my morals. I love my job as far as helping, and working with people. I should not have to battle with my employer. This is absolutely a nightmare.

We also know that if you announce a visit their will be a cracking of the whip and do a temporary clean up and tap dance around the issues presented above and the call center will return to its normal state of chaos and depravity.